Fifty Years Sober Sample

Preface to the Second Edition My name is Ross and I’m an alcoholic. But despite this fundamental fact about me as a human being, I was fifty years sober (free of alcohol and other drugs) on Australia Day, 26 January 2020. This means that I’ve had fifty more years on the planet than I otherwise would have had. Fifty Years Sober: An Alcoholic’s Journey is an updated version of My Name is Ross. In particular, this new book reveals what has happened to me from 26 January 2010 until Australia Day 2020, when I became fifty years free of alcohol and of all other mood-changing drugs. When I joined Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in Cleveland, Ohio in 1969, I wasn’t at the end of road; I was at the end of the end of the road! The reality is that if I hadn’t stopped drinking and drugging at twenty-five years of age, I wouldn’t have made twenty-six. When I was drinking, I thought that I was a writer, but in fact in those days I didn’t even write a note to the milkman! Yet since I have been a sober alcoholic, I have published forty-two books, most recently another Grafton Everest adventure, The Dizzying Heights. These works may not be War and Peace, but they exist and most are still available in libraries, bookstores, or online. I still attend two or three meetings of AA each week. This includes my local group, South Sydney, which meets from 2 pm to 3.30 pm every Saturday – rain, hail, or shine – at the Ray Williams Centre, Kepos Street, Redfern. If I stopped attending AA, even for a fortnight, the chances are that eventually, and probably relatively soon, I would revert to type and start drinking and drugging again. Then my life would be all vii over, red rover. One of the reasons I know this to be true is that the only time I tried to stop drinking of my own volition, I lasted half an hour! Apart from the fact that I can be an example of how someone so sick and damaged by addiction can learn to lead a useful life, if I stopped attending AA it would be a sign that I’m sober because of my own efforts, that is, by an isolated exercise of the will. But I’m not sober because I’m strong or pretty or clever. I’m only free of alcohol and other drugs because I stay close to AA and, each day, try to practise the twelve suggested steps of recovery. Like every human being, the last ten years of my life have seen many ups and downs. But as long as I continue to have nothing in my blood but blood, and stay close to AA, I am able to cope with whatever happens. And, from time to time, I can also live a fruitful and abundant life. But, especially when things gets tough, I need to remind myself that nothing can actually damage me like alcohol and other drugs did. Indeed, they still would if I tried to stay sober and clean on my own. The truth is that, although I’m now fifty years free of alcohol and other drugs, I’m still a day-to-day proposition. There’s really nothing surprising about an alcoholic drinking or an addict using. What is surprising and fascinating is that there are alcoholics and addicts who are not drinking or using and, in this respect, AA certainly has the numbers in successfully combatting addiction. But the reason that most AA meetings only have scores of attend- ees, and not hundreds, is because it’s an extremely difficult business for an alcoholic or an addict to get sober, and to stay sober, and to somehow learn to negotiate the world without killing or harming themselves. That’s why at AA meetings I often say, ‘We are playing for our lives here, friends. And what value can you put on a life?’ In terms of ups and downs, a huge highlight of my life since I was forty years sober on Australia Day 2010 was the Australian Football viii League (AFL) Grand Final replay on Saturday, 2 October of that year. In front of 93,853 spectators at the MCG, my life-long Aussie Rules team, Collingwood, defeated St Kilda by 56 points. This was the Mighty Magpies’ fifteenth VFL/AFL premiership victory and our first since 1990. The week before, on 25 September 2010, in front of 100,016 spectators, the match had ended in a draw, with the Pies and the Saints each scoring 68 points. How pleased my late father, Bill (‘Long Tom’) Fitzgerald would have been to learn that in the Grand Final replay in 2010 Collingwood, coached by Mick Malthouse, scored 16.12 (108) to St Kilda 7.10 (52). Although he never played for the firsts, Dad – a lifelong teetotaller who played over 100 games for the Pies – had captained Collingwood seconds in the late 1920s and early 1930s. My father and my mother Edna would have been proud and pleased that on 3 September 2014 Dame Marie Bashir, Governor of New South Wales, awarded me a Member of the Order of Australia. This was for my ‘significant service to education in the field of politics and history as an academic, and to community and public health organisations’. Although not specifically mentioned, the latter pri- marily refers to my work in AA and to my writings and commentaries about alcoholism and other addictions. Apart from being sober in AA, the most important fact in my life is my decades-long marriage to Lyndal Moor Fitzgerald. Perhaps appropriately, after knowing each other for two years, we tied the knot in 1976 on Guy Fawkes Day – 5 November. On 30 June 2012, I finished a twenty-year stint as a community member of the NSW State Parole Authority, and before that of the Queensland Parole Board. My appointment to both bodies was because of my personal and professional knowledge of alcoholism and other addictions. And on 30 June 2012, I became a life member of the Australian Republic Movement. One of the highlights of my life since 2010 was when our only child Emily (now Emerald), who had been born in Brisbane on 1 ix October 1982, married the excellent Adrian Gruin in New York on 25 September 2015. Although they actually met in America, Emerald and Adrian had previously attended Brisbane Girls Grammar School and Brisbane Boys Grammar School. The truth is that Adrian is so much better than all of Em’s previous suitors put end to end. Lyndal and I are indeed extremely grateful that Em and Adrian have teamed up to form a most successful partnership. A special highlight was the birth of our only grandchild, Ava Yeats Gruin, in New York, on 31 August 2016, or 1 September 2016 Sydney time. As with observing Emerald and Adrian living a fulfilled life as a loving couple, the exquisite Ava is an utter joy to behold. In the federal election of 2 July 2016, I was the lead NSW Senate candidate for the Australian Sex Party. Although ultimately unsuc- cessful, we came close to outpolling the Christian Democratic Party, led by the Reverend Fred Nile. The Sex Party has since been renamed the Reason Party, which is led by the feisty Victorian MLC, Fiona Patten. Sadly, on 5 January 2018 Lyndal and I had to put down our beloved West Highland White terrier, Maddie. She was thirteen years old. Each and every night when I returned to ‘Greystoke’, our home in Redfern, Maddie would whirl with delight at seeing me. Surprisingly, the same applied to Maddie’s Westie predecessor Belle, who – also for thirteen years – lived with us in Brisbane. Needless to say, such whirling on arrival did, and does, not apply to any human beings. By far the worst event of my life is the fact that Lyndal, my darling wife of forty-three years, is suffering from terminal cancer. Strangely, and for no obvious reason, shortly before her diagnosis, I sang us these verses of Jimmie Davis’ ‘You Are My Sunshine’: You are my sunshine, my only sunshine You make me happy when skies are grey You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you Please don’t take my sunshine away x The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping I dreamed I held you in my arms But when I awoke, dear, I was mistaken And I hung my head and I cried. Although I was, and am, utterly grief-stricken by Lyndal’s diagnosis, it is important to remind myself that nothing can actually damage me like alcohol and other drugs damaged me. I also need to understand deeply that if, one day at a time, I don’t pick up the first drink or drug, I can’t get drunk or drugged. Although coping with Lyndal’s imminent demise is hugely difficult, the reality is that I am of some real use and value. Indeed, apart from our close friend Mikey, I am the only person Lyndal wants to be with in the last year of her illness. This is certainly a tribute to AA in action. And I’m pleased to report that, shortly before this book was writ- ten, Lyndal said that, throughout our long relationship, I have never criticised her once. Professor Ross Fitzgerald Redfern, Sydney, January 2020 xi 1 Life, death, insanity Genetically and psychologically, I was (and am) strongly predisposed to alcoholism and addiction.

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